INTRODUCTION TO CLIMATE DYNAMICS

This course will provide the students with a basic understanding of how Earth’s climate operates and how it is investigated by contemporary as well as pioneering climate research. Focus is on the physical components of climate, especially linked with dynamics of the atmosphere and oceans. After a brief introductory overview on the concept of climate, the course will focus on a host of simple, conceptual models that will allow to learn the most fundamental processes operating within the climate system, including Energy Balance Models and Stochastic Climate Models. Students will become familiar with the main modern tools used for the characterization, understanding and prediction of climate, including instrumental observations, proxy-based and documental reconstructions, and simulations with numerical climate models. The course will then provide understanding of climate variability, with an introductory description of anthropogenic climate change and of natural forcing agents of climate – particularly volcanic and tropospheric aerosols, and variations in solar activity - and their associated response mechanisms, with practical reference to dominant modes of climate variability, such as the El Niño-Southern Oscillation. Lectures will illustrate the most significant recent significant advancements at the frontiers of current climate research, particularly regarding the near-term predictability and prediction of climate and the interactions between the physical and biogeochemical contributions to climate variability

Knowledge of the fundamental atmospheric and oceanic processes that determine climate state and variability. Knowledge of the main tools used in contemporary clmatology (observations, simulations, reconstructions). Development of critical evaluation skills in the assessment and attribution of climate change.

Basic knowledge of climatology, thermodynamics, chemistry. Some confidence with mathematics, in particular calculus and geometry.

key concepts of atmospheric physics and fluidodynamics; conceptual and realistic models of climate; detection and attribution of climate variability; anthropogenic climate change and future climate scenarios; predictability and prediction; the paleoclimate reconstruction problem; modes of climate variability and regional climates;

oral exam on the topics of the lectures

frontal lessons with discussions initiated with the students

English

oral